I have tossed around the idea of painting on webcam again, especially since I’m working on so many portraits at the moment. I’ll definitely let you know if I decide to do that and give you a link so you can pop in and watch me painting live in my studio.

Yesterday I decided to just snap photos of Claire’s portrait as I progressed and show you all of the stages I go through during a drawing session. If you’re looking for a tutorial on how to draw a portrait, I’m not sure that I am a very good teacher - but if you pick up more on visual cues, you’ll be good to go.

My supplies are very simple - an Ebony extra smooth drawing pencil, a set of Kimberly drawing pencils (a nice variety of hard and soft leads for shading and defined lines), a white block eraser, a kneaded eraser, sharpener, acid free archival drawing paper and a sock, so you don’t get yourself too messy during the process.

I started out measuring and marking the size, 4″ x 6″ on my pad, and worked in the line drawing:

Many, many portrait sketches = lots and lots of art to create this week!

Here’s what’s on my easel:

Badger is a certified therapy dog, she is allllways happy. I love that she’s smiling for her portrait. This will be an 8×8 oil portrait.

 

This is Morris, an orange tabby who recently crossed over the rainbow bridge. He’ll also be done in oils, on a 6×6 canvas.

 

I’ve painted Callie before, but this portrait of her will have much more meaning since it is in loving memory. Another 6×6 oil portrait.

Simba is a stunning orange tabby. Also in oil on 6×6 chunky wrapped canvas.

This yellow-sided green cheeked conure is Kiwi, she’s also having a 6×6 oil portrait. Kiwi and Boo (below) belong to Lisa’s daughter - these are a birthday surprise. So ssssh.

 

Boo was a beautiful parrotlet that passed away, her portrait pairs with Kiwi’s in 6×6.

 

This pose of Claire is just gorgeous, big curls falling down into her face - this is the line drawing for a 4×6 graphite drawing that All Adither won in January for giving me the bestest birthday wish. :)

After - I dunno, a lifetime of doodling on random things like kleenex, napkins, placeholders, envelopes or any piece of scrap paper I could get my hands on, I finally bought some Moleskine sketchbooks to carry around in my purse with me. Brilliant, right? It’s about time. It takes me a while to catch on, what can I say.

Yesterday while we were out, I decided to take out my moleskine, and the sock I wear on my hand (which made some people raise their eyebrows), and doodle. But what to doodle? I was lost for a minute. The kids went off to play, and I closed my eyes to see if I could “see” anything in there that I wanted to doodle - but nothing. I needed to doodle. CRAVED it. Especially since I will be drawing and painting all week next week. Getting back in the saddle, that’s what it was really all about.

So, what do you doodle when your mind is blank? You doodle what’s in front of you, that’s what.

This is the first page, how’d I doodle? Can you tell where we were, without looking at the “title”?

A long wait in the hospital waiting room, a box of pencils and a hand held sharpener. I worked Moggie’s second pencil portrait, a 6″ x 6″ piece to compliment her first portrait - which I finalized as well, adding whiskers and her name to her tag.

I’ll add a new scan of her first portrait behind the cut if you’d like to see that one in it’s finished state.

I’m offering these graphite portraits at $2 per square inch, which is a really nice price for an original piece of artwork. If you’re interested in having a graphite/pencil piece done, please get in touch with me through my “contact” form (linked in the top menu).